Question about walking

parkscs

I see so many people walking on their lunch break where I work. You won't burn a ton of calories but you can burn a couple hundred depending on pace, distance, etc. If you just started walking at lunch and made no changes to your diet, you would start to see small results.

I can't say that I would recommend overhauling your diet first. If you can cut one thing out or make one simple change to yoru diet and incorporate walking, it could be a good place to start. Everyone is different in this aspect though.

Unless you're tracking everything, you can't guarantee that your diet will remain the same when you add in exercise - for that matter, many people find exercise increases their appetite. And if you are tracking everything, then your diet is already in check so it's a non-issue (or at least I'll assume it is, since why track calories if you have no targets for caloric intake/macros).

Realistically, a 30 minute stroll at lunch is going to burn ~100 calories. If you do that 5 days a week, we're talking a pound every 7 weeks or so - and this assumes you don't eat any additional calories during this time period. If your goal is to lose 75 pounds, 1 pound every 7 weeks will leave you strolling 5 days/week for roughly the next decade. That's why diet has to come first and foremost if you want to see any realistic progress.

I'm not trying to make the case against exercise - far from it. I'm just saying exercise is relatively trivial when it comes to weight loss when compared to your diet and light exercise, while a great idea, is no substitute for a proper diet.

salevy

I used to walk on my lunch hour. I figured out that once around the whole building and back parking lots are one mile. So sometimes I did it once and sometimes I did it twice. I came back from my walk and had my lunch. Worked well.

Nedra19455

It's recommended that everybody get 30 min of vigorous activity (brisk walking counts) a day for weight management and a healthy heart. I would think that if you have an hour for lunch, a brisk 30-min walk would be a perfect way to help stay healthy and relieve stress during your workday. So jealous that you get an hour for lunch!

If you think walking will be your primary exercise, you might consider a fitness tracker. I have a Fitbit and it syncs directly with MFP and so I gain calories throughout the day as I am walking around. I eat back all my calories that I earn (the Fitbit is more accurate than MFP) and have still been losing weight.

ETA: when I say that I eat back my calories, I am still (usually) staying within the NET guideline for my weight loss goal from MFP. So I'm eating back my calories, but still have a deficit overall. I agree with others that tracking caloric input and maintaining a deficit is the most important part of weight loss.

DavPul

walking is not vigorous activity. it would have to be the briskiest of brisk walks to be considered "vigorous".